ACAMS Today spoke with Todd Beck, CAMS, senior product manager at ACAMS, to discuss ACAMS Certificates—essential training courses for early and/or intermediate compliance professionals and experienced staff.
ACAMS Today: In addition to the CAMS Certification and Advanced Certifications, ACAMS offers Certificates. What is the difference between the certifications and the certificates?
Todd Beck: ACAMS sells certificates which are different than our certifications (CAMS, CAMS-FCI, CAMS-Audit). Certificate courses are not as comprehensive as our certifications. Instead, certificates introduce and help round out skills.
AT: What type of certificates does ACAMS offer?
TB: This month we started selling an expansion of our ACAMS Certificates. We have four:
- AML Foundations
- Sanctions Compliance
- KYC CDD (NEW)
- Counter-Terrorist Financing (NEW)
AT: Do you plan on expanding the ACAMS Certificates library, if so, what topics/categories will we see in the future?
TB: Yes, expect to see several more certificates in the next year covering big, mainstream financial crime topics plus some niche topics. We’ll keep asking members what they want and we hope they’ll keep telling us.
AT: As an AML and financial crime prevention professional, what are the benefits of having an ACAMS Certificate(s)?
TB: ACAMS Certificates are an excellent way to:
- Onboard new employees
- Cross-train employees for additional functions
- Refresh the skills of experienced employees
- Introduce support staff and managers to functions they interact with
- Prepare for and earn credits toward CAMS, CAMS-FCI, or CAMS-Audit
AT: What is the general structure of the ACAMS Certificates and what are the requirements needed to obtain each certificate?
TB: Many ACAMS Certificates follow the same general structure, so they are “4-part, 4-hour, 4-week” online courses driven by a learning path on our Learning Management System. In every case the learner earns an ACAMS Certificate only after passing a rigorous online assessment.
Members can learn more about ACAMS Certificates by visiting http://www.acams.org/certificates/.
AT: Which ACAMS Certificate is your favorite?
TB: My favorite is always whichever one we finished most recently, because it was fun for me to learn, and because I feel that much better prepared to combat financial crime.